Wolf Reuter
Draft of lecture and basis of translation for the Chinese Book “Architectural Design Methodology”
Stuttgart / Shanghai 2013
Chapter 4: Dealing with Context
A house is not an isolated thing (see fig 2.8).A house, a building, an urban complex is in the centre of our interest. But it is connected to an outside world, with the world of laws, the social world, to the environment with its dimension of pollution, the job world, the economy, the politics or the culture. This was one of the messages in stating the complexity of design problems. Architects are obliged to find wise and harmonic decisions inface of complexity. That means to deal attentive and alert with the system as a whole, which includes the object to design as well as the situation wherein it will be placed.
Let us start with some examples to move into the world of dealing with context. The pictures also prove my hypothesis, that context is one of the most inspiring entities in the work of architects.The force of context can be seen in some cases of vernacular architecture like the yurt, the igloo or the Sumatra house (fig 4.1 – 4.3). The principles of this intelligent reaction on the context of hot humid climate have been used in modern designs (fig 4.4). A hot arid climate induced people to develop massive constructions, narrow position for shadow and catching wind for cooling (fig 4.5 and 4.6).The context of rare energy and much sun at another site in the United States generates a form, collecting the sun to a large extent (fig4.7). A steep slope calls for a special arrangement of access, distribution and resulting form (fig4.8). Renzo Piano would not have developed the form of the New Caledonian Cultural Centre without the context of climate, wind directions, and structures he found at the site (fig 4.9 - 4.11). The content of the library caused Herzog and DeMeuron to design the facade with pictures of a book inside (fig4.12). There are numerous examples exemplifying the power of context as a resource for architectural design.
In spite of this fact many architects don’t care or don’t estimate its value. Their approach to develop architectural solutions bases on other different resources. There are several approaches how an architect can come to his basic idea of a solution. One is to wait for some inspiration, for the kiss of the muse, for the divine spark. Maybe it comes, maybe not. Another one is to follow his stirring thought, the inner fire burning in his heart, the undiscoverable fund of sub-consciousness. He creates by mirroring his personal obsession, his exclusive, egocentric, sometimes autistic micro-cosmos. The opposite way is to ask people what they want. Other ones develop a solution out of the task, convinced that there is a logical chain leading to the one and only one, the light at the end of the tunnel.
The way favoured here is to place his work and the development of ideas into an engaged discussion with the situation where the design will be situated. The situation can be sensitively perceived and observed, it can be analysed intellectually. (That dealing with the situation may happen in his own brain, with himself, as well as with various partners, in a team, with experts in other fields as well as colleagues of his profession. It may have the form of explicit argumentation or of associative reasoning like brainstorming; this is just a question of method.)
All of these ways do exist and all are allowed and are more or less successful. Usually they are mixed in practical doing. Here the focuswill be on the latter, the possibilities of how to develop a solution in a conscious way of dealing with context.What does that strategy mean? How does it work?
Assume that, what influences your design, is what you find in „the given situation“: the sight (a steep hill, a waterfront), the price limit, expectations on the semantic effect, the image (corporate identities, representation of power or money), or the history of the place.
This given situation, also to call „context“, is the system under consideration. Here is the link between our considerations about complexity, about the complex networks, where our intervention will be a new part of it. The architectural design is an intervention into the world. The world as it is and the product of the architect meet, not without consequences for each other. Context is the part of the world which already exists before anew architecture is added. But per definition it comes into being as context first and only if the intervention is considered. In dealing with context it can be seen that architecture is neither an autistic or idiosyncratic act nor an autonomous aesthetical statement of an artist, but, as an intervention into the real world, it is always that kind of acting which wins its inspiration by the context. The dealing with context may be seen as coercion respectively the freedom of dealing with coercion.
The given situation, in which the architect considers to induce his design, is context then and only then, if there emerges a relation between the creation of the architect and the surrounding. At first contextual oriented design is connected with visual imaginations illustrating an idea of the architect like in case of the house Falling Water (fig 4.13)or the housing block of MVRDV in the harbour of Amsterdam(fig. 4.14). But we know that the stylistic attitude of Frank Lloyd Wright is not only due to the inspiration of rock formations and water, and that the idea of MVRDV is not only serving the memory of containers, which will disappear from that harbour in the future. Rather both architects can calculate with the genius of their time and a resulting acceptance of their associations by a community of recipients that means with a cultural context. Even buildings for mass housing as in the “Märkischen Viertel” (“Gropius Town”) or at the east coast of China have not been designed without context. (fig. 4.15 - 4.17)There was the context of high demand, many people, urging time, rare ground, few money, social imperatives, profit interests and a large concentration of big money in the hand of few if not one investor. So, we recognize two potentials of context. One offers a model which represents the different conditions of a sector of the reality. The other one inflames the fantasy of designers and stimulates the development of creative concepts. However narrow or far is the range of these potentials – principally it is not possible to design without context. And the statement is that there is no other influence, which incenses the fantasy, the design ideas more than the context with its special profile.
In order to develop the dealing with context in a more systematic way and with all its facets, the thoughts are ordered now, according to a structural-analytical method, in form of questions.
1What is context?
Context is not a thing or a construct existing by itself, like a geometric form or a colour; it is always related to somethingelse which is object of main attention and which is imbeddedin that context. Context designates a relation. As science of literature introduced the terminus, it says, that a piece of text can only be understood correctly, if it is seen in a sense making relation to the proceeding and subsequent pieces of text. This concept of context is expanded in such a way, that to context belong even the properties of the situation wherein a statement is made. They can include the biography of the author, social conditions, psychic tensions and mental horizons as well as the actual state of cultural progress. Only if the inner connection in a text and the relations to external conditions are realized, only then one can understand it, can interpret it correctly.
If architects and planners speak of context, they have a different, a turned focus. The design and the resulting building is not to be interpreted, because till now it does not exist in the context, but it is to be invented, created by the architect and is to be implanted in an already existing world as a new object; but at the same time it is born by the inspiration coming out of that world. The architect places his product into a real-world-context, which he did not design but finds as a fact. But the product is formed by the influence of that context insofar as the architect accepts it or has to accept it for his design. This concept of context supposes an intervention, which thinks together something new with something existing and which interweaves both. The word “contextus” in its original Latin meaning stands for this kind of mingling.
Now we ask more precisely what is meant by that word “context”. [1] To elucidate let us take as a help another language, againthat of the systems theorists. Every object of our interest, of our study becomes a system, if we analyse it in terms of its elements and the relations between the elements. A system definitively consists of a number of elements and their interrelations. In a living system any intervention at some place produces changes of the next neighbouring element. That means that in netted structures effects continue without a predictable end. Equally it is with architectonic interventions in a context.
In a big city like Frankfurt for example the image forming skyline of the already existing highrise buildings may suggest its continuation with new skyscrapers. On the other hand a consequence would be that thereby the amount of traffic and as effect the emission of co2 will rise, which worsens the climate of the city, which damages the attractiveness of the city as a place for living and location of economic investment. Even on a smaller scale there can be triggered a disadvantageous chain of reaction, if a new tower casts shadow upon a sensible and at the same time valuable neighbourhood like a frequented public square or park. Such considerations describe only a fraction of the possible effects in the system called city of Frankfurt.
We experience the difficulty to get hold of the concept context, but at the same time we see that the reflection of context helps to discover the possible effects of an intervention. So, we can define the term context as a system of all elements of the considered section of the world, which architect and planners can relate to an intended intervention. These “elements” are of very different nature. They can be physical elements like neighboured buildings as well as psychic elements like well-being and contentment, as well as mental elements like the knowledge about a culture, habits or rituals. Increasinglythere are taken into account the aspects which describe the affected ecological system. Insofar context represents in a universal sense the whole known net of all possible factors of influence, which we consider as source of inspiration for designed interventions as well as effects of these interventions in the respective system like village, city, region, etc. The system “context” is the net, which surrounds the architectonical intervention and which serves as powerful incentive of the fantasy of architects and urban planners. At the same time we can observe the waves of the intervention how they spread out in that system. (fig. 4.18)
By that definition again we come across with the feature of the difficulty to limit the system where architects and planners work in, as we already stated it when dealing with complexity (see chapter 2).The Example of the material choice for a wintergarden led us from the immediate context of the marketing strategy of a producing firm, local pricesof frame material and supposed wishes of clients to the international market for tropical wood, to trade relations, to then ecological, climatic, social and political questions, to the ethics of acting in the differentials between industrial and underdeveloped countries. A few steps in the context – and we are in a global net.
(remember fig. 21- fig. 2.7))
There is no rule limiting the system of elements one can relate to a given starting point. It is a question of fantasy, of ability to associate, of the repertoire of knowledge, and of courage. (How far does somebody dares to go?) Where does he stop in saying what belongs to context? In that respect context is infinite. We come to that point later when we discuss the difficulties of dealing with context. But so far we can include in the definition of context its lack of limitation, if an architect or planner crosses the boarder of professional ignorance by the power of his intuition, his knowledge, normative restlessness or practical reasoning. Every design can find its orientation in a smaller or wider context, can be egocentric or responsible, narrow minded or global, no matter whether it is a living house in a small town or a new office building on ground zero.
If instead of a general rule, there is just the personal ability of the architect which decides on limits, form and content of the context, it follows, that there can occur alternative, different and maybe concurring contexts. Should an architect orientate on the market of art production (fig. 4.19Gehry Guggenheim), on the technical avant-garde (fig 4.20 , 4.20a), on the demand for symbols ( fig 4.21 - 4.24), on respect to landscape, or on advanced state of technique of energy saving? All can be successful. Are architects free in their choice or bound to groups, areas, nations, states of development of cultures – which means to another kind of context? So we can include in our definition of context the impossibility to limit it as well as its dependence on judgement and choice in the practise of architects and planners.
2Why is context interesting for architects and planners?
If it is so difficult to define the extent of a context and so open, which kind of context should be chosen, there arises the question for the motivation to engage in that theme. There are three main reasons: on the one hand it is to know the potential impacts of considered interventionsin given situations; on the other hand we are professionally obliged to make sure the limitations of our activities and furthermore we want to use the stimulating power of context on creative work.
The first reason refers to the expectations of client, building owner, administration, politicians or the own intellectual or moral conscience to precisely unfold the consequences of a considered intervention in order to reach decisions on the best possible basis of knowledge. Debate in controversial situation very often debates are inflamed by the consequences to be expected. If for example in a the centre of a town like Stuttgart afirm wants to build a new high rise building (fig. 4.25), the city wants to know and the planners are obliged to assess the factors, which will be changed. There are the shadowing of neighboured places, private and public ones, which can be proved by computer simulation, the ventilation of the city (fig. 4.26), which can be examined in a wind channel (fig. 4.27), the turbulences caused by thermionic up-winds near the building, the traffic frequency, the raising of emissions of co2, so2, nox, fine dust, which can be simulated by air movement models, the social compatibility, the aesthetics of urban public space, the corporate identity of the city, the marketing strategy, the attractiveness for other investors, its future economic development, and others more. Additionallyin many German towns there is the competition concerning the dominance of meaning, triggered by the dominance in height, with old cultural buildings like city hall and church which contribute to the identity of the city. Planning architects should know about these problems and should at least be able to argue. In general, context is interesting as field of impacts which are and should be under the control of the planner. He has to take position and contribute to the decision, whether they are desired or not. Otherwise he is not a responsible professional planner.
The second reason for our interest is that context limits the freedom of our interventions. Sometimes laws forbid a certain extension or form of a building. Or existing plans of nature conservation hinder to fell trees at the place of a planned house. The office for conservation of historical monumentsmay prescribe limits of change of an existing building or ensemble of buildings. Or there is a limited budget, much less than thought to be necessary. Or the ground is rocky while the plan was to dig deeply into the earth to keep the sight for neighbouring buildings. Take as an example the context of a small traditional German town. (fig. 4.28) The restriction is, that the size of a house should not exceed a certain size and that the roof should have the traditional saddleback. An Architect bound tothe vocabulary of the modern style with its flat roofs had to design a house with the prescribed form. (fig. 4.29)It shows how interesting context is as source of restrictions.
The third point is the most interesting one for creative architects. It opens the perspective that context not only influences but also stimulates the kind of their intervention. There are always aspects of the context which give impulses for special ideas, which open new chances of design, chances for creating a characteristic profile never seen before. Extraordinary solutions with a profiled character in recent history of architectureoften originated from contextual situations which themselves had a characteristic profile. The stronger the profile of a context the more profiled solutions have been. Context offers a reservoir of hooks where an architect can hang up an idea. The claim is that context is – besides the inner artistic and intellectual potential of an architect– the most powerful source for the development of ideas. One just has to use it! Such different architects like Frank Lloyd Wright, Peter Zumthor, Renzo Piano, Norman Foster or Herzog und de Meuron have been capable to use that unvaluable resource in an intelligent way.